Townsend Security Data Privacy Blog

Encrypted PDF & ZIP on the IBM i

IBM i (AS/400, iSeries) users send a lot of sensitive information to their customers, vendors, and employees which needs to be protected with strong encryption. Our customers today are using our PGP encryption solution to protect files. But there has been a big need to generate and protect information in common PC formats. With our upcoming release of Alliance FTP Manager for IBM i, we are stepping up our support with encrypted Zip files and encrypted PDF files.

Zip compression is very commonly used to send files via email. Not only does zip compression make our email attachments smaller, but the most popular zip compression programs now support 256-bit AES encryption of the contents. The ability to encrypt Zip files with AES provides a much better level of security than older zip protection methods. In the new release of Alliance FTP File Manager for IBM i we fully support Zip encryption to the WinZip standard. This means that you can create and protect Zip files on your IBM i platform, and then use a variety of delivery methods to get the Zip files in the hands of your customers, vendors, and employees. This will immediately give IBM i customers a new tool to meet compliance regulations.

The new Zip support provides rich capabilities to IBM i users. You can create encrypted or un-encrypted zip archives, include sub-directories, and use wild cards to select files. When uncompressing and decrypting you can specify any directory as the target for the files. This capability integrates with our automation facilities for processing received files. Lastly, we provide a Windows command line Zip application to help our customers who don’t already have a Zip application. I’m confident that this new capability will help our customers achieve a better level of security.

The other new security technology in FTP Manager for IBM i is our encrypted PDF support. In this first implementation, our customers will be able to create encrypted PDFs with their own content, and then use the automation facilities to distribute the PDFs via email, FTP, and other distribution methods. Encrypted PDF support includes the ability to set fonts and colors, embed watermark and graphic images, set headers and footers, and create tables and lists. The resulting encrypted PDF file is compatible with any PDF reader that supports the AES encryption standard for PDF. We’ve tested with a wide variety of PDF readers on PCs, Apple Macs, Blackberry, Linux desktops, and so forth. This will give our customers an additional tool to secure their sensitive data.

These new technologies for the IBM i customer will increase their abilities to meet compliance regulations and secure sensitive data. I hope you get the idea that we are dedicated to helping you protect your sensitive data and corporate assets. You are going to see a lot more of these types of new capabilities as we go forward.